Savvy tips for winning Princeton's career game

Ah, the Career Fair. Where else can one find a bunch of depressed recent Princeton grads trying to make their jobs sound great? Well, I guess in the taprooms of their former eating clubs later that night, but that's beside the point. For those of you who have never been to the career fair, it's kind of like bickering for a lot of money. You have five minutes to get across as much information as you can about yourself to the potential employer. Then you leave, they probably laugh about you, and you "sign in" to the Peace Corps.

Of course, two years in Siberia with the Peace Corps sounds great after you meet the recruiters on campus. A trip to the career fair teaches you that there are two possibilities for a Princeton graduate: One is joining a consulting firm, and the other is joining a consulting firm. Consulting firms are all finding solutions to something or other through various innovative techniques. One look at their mottos will tell you this. They are either finding solutions through innovation for a better world or bettering the world through innovative solutions. Which path you choose makes all the difference, so proceed with caution.

You may be angry at this situation, this seeming lack of options. However, you have no marketable skills and few social graces, so suck it up, print out some resumes, put on a nice suit and head over to Dillon. You'll be coming up with innovative solutions to problems you didn't even know existed when the alternative is sleeping on that random mattress in the stairwell of Pyne all next year.

Your first key is the resume. This is where you squeeze every drop out of everything you've ever sort of done in your entire life. Gave a Dalmatian water once? You were a volunteer firefighter. If you've ever watched TV in Whig, you're a member of the oldest debating society in the nation. Don't forget the student groups you're active in. Being an undergraduate makes you part of the USG in a sense, so you can write that down, and being in an eating club develops interpersonal skills. I don't really need to elaborate on the fudged resume too much. You all applied to Princeton, so you're all experts already.

Now for the dress. If you're looking at the CIA, go black suit. Same thing for the DEA; you can use your resume for rolling paper (not in front of them) if you don't look like a man in black. More of a corporate person? Abercrombie and Fitch is recruiting on campus this year, so if you're interested you should dress accordingly. The easy thing about this is that you already go to Princeton, so just dress like you normally do. Get on that brand new hat that has the factory-frayed brim. Put on the khakis and don't forget your special t-shirt. You want everyone to know that you are a member of the Abercrombie avalanche rescue team like it says.

What, you ask, of grad school? Is there not a delay to the nine to five day? Sadly, as bad as you think sitting at a desk fraying hat brims for Abercrombie is, grad school is worse. Grad school will fray your soul, judging from the blank stares of the students over across the golf course. Or maybe that's just their face frozen after seeing where they will be living. "Welcome to the Butler apartments. Don't have more than 10 people over at a time because these cinder blocks holding the house up can only take so much." You can recognize a grad student out at the Street because they are weeping with joy at the prospect of human interaction. Then again, maybe those tears aren't of joy and they just realized the girl they were hitting on is actually in their precept.

In summary, your only choice is being a consultant. Problem is, no consulting firms will take you because you're just awful at solutions in general. You can't do your own laundry for God's sakes. The CIA and DEA won't take you because you're dressed up like an Abercrombie freak (that and the debilitating coke habit), and Abercrombie's not interested because you're ugly. That and you weren't on the Abercrombie state football championship team like your shirt says. They were on that team and sure as hell don't recognize you.

What's the innovative solution to this problem? What job would possibly fit you well with your complete lack of qualifications, shady past, and frightening looks? Turns out you're just out of luck. The job was in California and was just taken last week. See you in the stairwell of Pyne next year . . .